As with most years, our 2023 conferences started with the AUTM Annual Meeting. This year we connected with technology transfer professionals in Austin, Texas from February 19-22. The AUTM Annual Meeting is where technology transfer professionals from around the globe meet to connect, make deals, and gain insights from world-class speakers and panels.
Jake Sweeney, Abner Castaneda, and Hunter Calvert represented ktMINE and have provided their takeaways.
Day 1: Sunday, February 19th
Austin was a beautiful city to host the event. After arriving, the team explored the grounds and headed to downtown Austin to get a taste of what the city offers.
Unfortunately, our booth shipment was delayed, but that did not stop us from enjoying the opening reception and reconnecting with valued customers, and prospects. Since last year’s event, we’ve made several upgrades to our Benchmark App and implemented new patent research capabilities within the ktMINE Search App. Both of which caught the attention of quite a few event attendees on our first night.
Day 2: Monday, February 20th
After heading to the event bright and early, we hit the show floor running. With around 2,000 attendees, the turnout for the event this year was excellent. We spent our time discussing how ktMINE applications can benefit both the negotiation and marketing side of the technologies universities are looking to commercialize while also offering attendees on-the-spot demonstrations of our applications.
One thing we heard from a lot of event-goers was how difficult it is to find close comparables for technologies that are very early stage. This is due to the nature of such agreements and the newness of the technologies. To help with this issue, we showed them how seamless it is to find something comparable in the Benchmark App.
The ktMINE Benchmark App saves research time with improved search filter logic, enhanced data, and segmentation tools. Making it easy to narrow your search of comparables and dig into the terms based on contractual language. This leaves you with real-world examples of previously agreed-upon contracts to speed up the structuring of your own deals.
Day 3: Tuesday, February 21st:
Tuesday’s most prevalent topic was concerns associated with uncertain economic times. technology transfer offices are, more than ever, stressing the importance of consolidating data research platforms. Each subscription must check off as many needs as possible, decreasing expenditure while increasing research (and results) expediency.
Another common issue technology transfer offices are facing is high turnover. Funding is becoming harder to come by, exacerbated by the increase in initial time investment required to train new employees on a tool. Although the data would benefit their research, they can’t justify the price. Luckily, ktMINE offers packages of all sizes and prices created based on user needs and budgets.
If you are looking to accelerate the commercialization of inventions and academic research, contact us to discuss your access options.
At the end of day 3, we said our goodbyes and headed home. We look forward to seeing everyone again next year in sunny San Diego.
